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Dedication of" Monument to Benjamin[;Hamson 



INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA 
Ocftober 27 th 

1908 



JOHN W. NOBLE 



E.VO I 



.in 

Author 
(Person) 

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Ulr, President and Telhw Citizens: 

.More than seven years ago there were here held the obsequies of 
Benjamin Harrison. We were in sorrow then from i he loss of a friend, 
a neighbor and a good man. Our affliction prevented any clear estimate 
of him other than in those intimate relations of life where we judge 
more from the heart than by the mind. We did not then asserl his 
greatness, but bowed in submission to the will of God. The nation 
was bereaved. The President of the United States, the Governor of 
this State, the comrades of his military career, his associates in public 
life, and his fellow-citizens of all parties and of all stations, stood be- 
side the altar and filled the avenues of this, his beloved and loving 
city; and then with flags all draped, with dirge and tears moved in 
funeral procession to his sepulchre. 

Time has abated, without erasing our emotions, and has given a 
perspective by which we may more justly measure his merit by his 
deeds. This monument, unveiling his form to our vision and express- 
ing a people's love and esteem for the citizen, the soldier, the states- 
man, and the patriotic Chief Magistrate, draws our thoughts from his 
tomb and lifts them on high in praise and gratitude, as we recall his 
character, his career, and the blessings bestowed by Providence, 
through him, upon our nation. America is to-day proud of this typical 
American. By orations and poems, with song and music, and unfolded 
banners, we dedicate this memorial, and commend his example, for 
the inspiration of our youth and the manhood of the present and 
of the future. 

THE HARRISON ADMINISTRATION. 

If we turn to consider his administration of our Government, of 
which I am to speak, we shall find him therein, displaying those 
qualities, which, in the estimation of men, bear the unmistakable 
mark of true greatness. His was an administration of a statesman, 
strictly attentive to Government business and controlled in all its de- 
partments by a fervent but discriminating patriotism. It could not 
have been otherwise, for his career was one truly national, and its 
threads, as they were successively spun, bound him more strongly to 
his country. It embraced largely the development of the West 
and farthest West, and their transformation into homes and terri- 
tories and states of the Union. His life grew at school and college 
near his Ohio birth-place into vigorous and well-equipped intelli- 
gence, and found its opportunity for action among those who, like 
himself, were descendants of the earlier western pioneers. It was 

—3— 



inspired by memories of his ancestors, and carried him with our 
western troops into the war for the Union, with the ardor of a sol- 
dier of the Revolution, with the courage of those who fought at Tip- 
pecanoe, and the steadfastness of those who won the victory of the 
Thames. It secured him a loving helpmate and built him a home 
in this then small city. It gave him a sympathy for those who had 
fought and suffered with him, and with whom he had to labor for 
his bread, and it led him forth to debate upon and defend, among the 
people, in convention and in legislative hall, the principles of govern- 
ment he deemed essential to the public welfare. It compelled him 
to mature thought and logical demonstration upon constitution and 
statute and the law of the land, and to clothe all with ade- 
quate expression. It lifted him to a comprehensive and just 
appreciation of our country, the greatness of our land, the demands 
of our people for better recognized equality among the nations, and 
it fitted him to apply, advance, and often to inaugurate, when he 
became Chief Magistrate, national policies that mark and will ever 
signalize this new era the United States enjoys, and which now, 
fifteen years after his executive services ended, are speeding on the 
prosperity of our people and the power and influence of the Great 
Republic. 

In approaching a consideration of this administration, it is to be 
borne in mind that lines of policy most nearly affecting national life 
are not broken because of changes in control of the Government 
from one party to another, as our history has shown. There is a 
national life, like the subconscious one of the individual man, that 
bears tin 1 nation onward upon paths of action so essential to its wel- 
fare that no party desires or dares to abandon, or greatly change 
them. The Monroe doctrine, so called, announced in 1823, has long- 
since passed from the domain of political discussion. The Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress during the Harrison administration, and the visit 
of an eminent cabinet officer of the present administration to the 
Republics of South America have met with universal approval. 

We must in this relation also consider that "such policies must 
come from the people." These do not originate with the individual. 
They are perceived, often dimly at first, then confirmed by time, intel- 
ligence, discussion, and "the common-sense of most," and when backed 
by Hi" voice and votes of the majority, become "lapt in law" and 
operative in national life. Yet there must be the leaders, the 
thinkers, those to advocate and those to apply with earnestness and 
wisdom the policy developed; and to these, upon success attained, is 
justly given our acknowledgment of excellence. Their names become 

—4— 



attached to the principles beneficently enforced; their greatness estab- 
lished. Indeed, the State itself, like Magna Charta, as has often been 
said, is but the declaration of principles, generated and grown, tried 
in forum and on field, and adopted by public opinion, antecedent to 
the State itself. But those men who formulate institutions or exe- 
cute a wise policy live in history among its "few immortal names." 

Such was Benjamin Harrison, whose works do follow him. 

Let us then proceed to presentation of the facts, not all, in;! 
but enough surely to prove that he was a constructive statesman 
of the first class, and the measures he advocated and enforced have 
now continuing power, and forever hereafter must beneficially affect 
our country's career. 

ARBITRATION AND THE NEW NAVY. 

The year 1889 marked a period of change from much that had 
been accomplished. Our people were ceasing to discuss past issues 
and were hopefully contemplating the future. The war was over. Re- 
construction had run its course, and all the States were exercising 
their unrestricted rights in the Union. The South was realizing as 
great a relief because of free labor as the North, and with the Union 
established now beyond dispute, there had come not only prosperity 
at home, but an importance for our country in foreign affairs at once 
gratifying to its pride and stimulating it to farther-reaching views and 
a broader statesmanship. To the discussion of these in large part the 
very first, as well as the successive messages of the President, were 
given, and his executive power earnestly extended. 

When he visited the Ecumenical Conference of the Methodist 
Church in Washington City, in October, 1891, on the day that ki inter- 
national arbitration" was there being discussed, he declared that 
"it is by Christian sentiment, characterized not only by a high sense 
of justice, but by a spirit of love and forbearance, mastering the civil 
institutions and governments of the world, that we shall approach 
universal peace and adopt arbitration methods of settling disputes." 
He strongly favored such measures; but he remarked to the assem- 
bly that before he was aware of the theme or occasion which that 
morning occupied their attention, he had appointed that after- 
noon to visit the great-gun foundry of the United States, at 
the Navy Yard; and that things had come in their proper 
sequence; that he was at that arbitration meeting before going 
to the gun factory, and, as he further remarked to them, elicit- 
ing their applause, "We will have our gun foundries; and possibly 
will best promote the settlement of international disputes by arbi- 

—5— 



tration, by having it understood that if the appeal is to a fiercer 
tribunal, we shall not be out of the debate." 

The New Navy was then being created, and he and the able Sec- 
retary of the Navy were in earnest superintendence of its advance- 
ment. When the administration began, there were but three mod- 
ern steel vessels in commission, but before it ended, there were 
nineteen more afloat. In his message of December 6th, 1892, the 
President exclaimed with patriotic pride, "The United States is again 
a naval power." His was "the rapture of" the accomplishment of 
"a high resolve." 

The policy of international arbitration has developed indeed 
with a growing Christian sentiment, characterized by a sense of jus- 
tice; but that Navy has also increased, and is to-day sailing the seas 
of the Orient, with its three columns, like the prongs of Neptune's 
trident, ruling the waves, not upon an expedition of war, but in 
the sole interests of commerce and of peace; visiting the ports of 
many peoples without offensive assertion, eliciting and reciprocating, 
even among rival nations, expressions of admiration and friendship, 
only; but silently suggesting that upon questions of the future affect- 
ing our people's dignity or welfare, the United States will not be "out 
of the debate." 

It. was most appropriate, that seven years ago in yonder state 
capitol, as his remains lay in state, there was placed upon the bier 
of Benjamin Harrison the flag borne by the battleship "Indiana" in 
the victory at Santiago! 

The hope, the only hope, in the immediate present, for either 
effective international or domestic arbitration, is the recognition that 
there is a power at hand to enforce the award pronounced, if sub- 
mission is not voluntary. 

FOKEIGN AFFAIES. 

The administration was fortunately one of peace with foreign 
nations, but there was more than one occasion when there was 
possibility of a conflict. When these occurred it fell to the Presi- 
dent himself to take in charge the honor and interests of the United 
St .iies, and it was done with a courage so prompt and a capacity 
to present our position and just demands so clearly, that not only 
our own people were satisfied, but Chili, as to the Valparaiso affair, 
and Italy, as to the mob violence perpetrated upon certain of her 
subjects, at a port of ours on the Gulf, acquiesced in President Har- 
rison's positions. The dispute with Great Britain as to our right to 
protect I he seals frequenting our islands in Behring Sea ended in 

—6— 



satisfactory arbitration, and the Samoan dispute, begun indeed in 
the previous administration, ended in this, however, in a satisfac- 
tory tripartite agreement with Great Britain and Germany. 

THE VALPARAISO INCIDENT. 

Of these incidents, thai a1 Valparaiso was the mosl delic 
as it involved a demand for an apology and seme adequate reparation 
for the wrong complained of from a South American State with 
which the United States was solicitous to be at peace, and which 
was then torn by great internal dissension. The President's mes- 
sage to Congress in regard to the assault there made upon the sailors 
of the "Baltimore," wearing and because, it was deemed, they wore 
the United States uniform, declared when the evidence had been all 
adduced, was "that it had been his desire in every way to cultivate 
friendly and intimate relations with all the governments of this 
hemisphere, but this Government, while exercising the utmost for- 
bearance, would, when necessary, extend its strong and adequate pro- 
tection to its citizens, its officers, and to its humblest sailors" in other 
lands. 

These prompt and dignified declarations have fixed a policy alike 
conciliatory to others upon this hemisphere and elsewhere, and . 
tective of the national safety. 

Peace was secured with honor. 

SEAL FISHERIES DISPUTE. 

In the seal fisheries dispute, it came about through the increas- 
ing illness of the Secretary of State, who had first taken up the case 
with his great experience and fine ability, that ere it ended, 
the diplomatic correspondence had to be conducted by the President 
himself; and were there no other evidence of his complete equipment 
for the great place he held, the papers then written display his 
capacity as a statesman to have been of the highest order. Like 
the speeches he delivered when, in 1890, going to and from California 
and visiting the cities and towns en route, it greatly impressed our 
own and all other peoples with a new conception of his ability and 
mental resources. 

POSTAL AFFAIRS AND MERCHANT MARINE. 

During this administration there was an efficient and progressive 
management of the great bureau of the Post Office Department, the 
President declaring that "new postoffices mean new hamlets and 
towns; new routes mean the extension of our border settlements, and 



increased revenues mean an active commerce." Many million miles 
of mail journeys were added in the four years. Much of this was 
because of the subsidy aid given our merchant marine through 
this department. Upon the policy of subsidies, he maintained ''there 
was no choice left, so long as our great competitors maintain the 
practice of giving government aid to their merchant marine, and that 
no subject more nearly touches the pride, the power and the pros- 
perity of our country than the development of our own." Acting 
upon this belief, and by such aid as was allowed, there were secured 
the building of sixteen American steamships, and, prospectively, forty- 
one mail steamers, with more for Brazil and Argentine. There were 
five ships of 10,000 tons each, adding seven of the swiftest vessels upon 
the sea, including the transatlantic liners, the City of New York and 
the City of Paris. 

By such means, with no thought of partiality or extravagance, 
was it sought not only to advance the strength of our Navy, but to 
send, if he could, the American flag, covering American cargoes, to 
ports where it had become almost an entire stranger. 

These transatlantic liners, it is also to be noted, were of those 
which, put on a war footing, in the war with Spain, became the "eyes" 
of the ships of line, like the frigates of former days. Thus were the 
wisdom and foresight of the administration shown in more ways than 
one; in preparing for war in time of peace. He loved peace, lie sought 
it ever, he advocated international arbitration, but he was sane in 
his method to attain and preserve these. 

SUPPRESSION OF LOTTERIES. 

It was also through this department of the Post Office that lot- 
teries, even if allowed by state laws, were effectually suppressed 
by the refusal to carry their tickets and schemes in the mail, and by 
prosecuting the offenders against the statutes forbidding the attempt 
to use the mail for such purpose. This and kindred frauds have thus 
in our country been about exhausted and crushed. 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER. 

From liis training as a lawyer, and his six years' experience as 
United Stales Senator, Benjamin Harrison had become remarkably 
familiar with all governmental affairs, in their general relations as leg- 
islative, judicial or executive, as well as with those divisions of the ex- 
ecutive departments, whose secretaries constitute the Cabinet. He 
was al no loss to instantly comprehend any question pertaining to 
either, and very often to direct action to his constitutional advisers 

—8— 



upon views and facts not before considered by (hem. It may well 
be said that no Chief Magistrate of the United Slates lias a1 any 
period been more closely acquainted with the details of depart- 
ments, or with the constitutional and legal structure of our repub- 
lican form of Government. His reputation as a lawyer was second 
to none. Indeed it was said of him by one of the most eminent jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court, that lie was the greatest lawyer appear- 
ing at the bar of that court, and one fall of resources in argument. 

A PEACE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

He was such a lawyer, largely, because, with all his learning 
and acumen, he was a servitor of the law, proud of his profession, but 
prouder si ill of the judiciary whose goodness and greatness he know, 
and the individuals composing which he ever respected. 

There arose then an event that illustrated this in a striking and 
novel manner. Justice Field, it will be recalled, when on his journey 
from one circuit court to another, accompanied by a United States 
Marshal, an officer of his court, and stopping at a place of refresh- 
ment in the state of California, was attacked by a desperado, who 
assaulted and struck the Justice with murderous intent, but who was 
instantly fired upon and killed by the Marshal. To try the officer 
for this act in the local state tribunal, as was demanded by the State, 
was thought not necessary, and the President and his able Attorney- 
General maintained that the matter was to be inquired of only in a 
court of the United States. Upon the case brought to the consid- 
eration of the United States Supreme Court, it was, on full and 
learned argument there decided (Justice Samuel F. Miller deliver- 
ing the opinion), that there is a peace of the United States; that the 
the justice was ou duty as he progressed on his circuit from one 
court to another; that one assailing a judge of the United States 
while in the discharge of his duty, violates that peace; that in such 
case the Marshal of the United States stands in the same relation 
to the peace of the United States that the Sheriff of the county docs 
to the peace of a State; that the Marshal was acting under authority 
of the law of the United States, and, being so justified, was not 
answerable elsewhere on account of his part in the transaction. 

It was in this administration also that fraudulent naturalization 
papers were first cancelled by proceedings in Courts of Equity, by the 
Unitetd States, on relation of the Attorney-General, and claims there- 
under to citizenship abrogated. 

REGARD FOR OUR JUDICIARY. 

The same high regard for the judiciary that led the President to 
protect a judge in office and on duty, and to thus exemplify pro- 
found reverence for our courts, was exhibited also in his appoint- 
ments of justice or judge. Here he had ever before him the 
of Washington to John Jay, when made Chief Justice, "that the ju- 
diciary department must be considered the key-stone of our politic:! 1 
fabric," and again to James Wilson, when made a justice, that "the 

—9— 



judicial department is the chief pillar upon which our government 
must rest; and that it was a duty to nominate for the high offices 
in that department such men as would give dignity and luster to 

oar national character," and, as he himself has written, "anv assaults 
upon his department threaten the whole structure of the stately 
arch." 

l\y these declarations and administrative acts the judiciary has 
ii greatly strengthened to meet the vicissitudes of coming years, 
if in the opinion of any considerable party the courts may be fool- 
ishly deemed too independent, or their decrees intolerable when con- 
flicting with individual opinion arising from personal interests. 

NATIONAL SUPPORT OF EDUCATION. 

There was no policy the President deemed more important thau 
that of giving national support to public education. He loved to advo- 
cate it, and when the children of the schools received him, as they so 
often did, with songs and flowers and Hags, he deemed his service 
more complimented than by any other demonstration that could be 
made. When the act of August 30, 1890, introduced and advocated 
by Senator Morrill, was approved, giving a portion of the proceeds 
of the public lands to each state and territory for colleges for the 
benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, where no distinction of 
race or color was made, the administration acted with such prompt- 
ness and vigor that in eleven months there were forty-two and 
territories certified as entitled to this fund, and warrants drawn for 
three separate annual installments thereof; and other cases 
settled, by December, 1892, over $2,000,000 were distributed to 1 
six institutions. This policy has been and is one of greatest satisf 
tion to the people, for it not only nourishes education, but visit:', with 
its beneficence the communities of the older states as well as the n 

RESERVATIONS OF FORESTS. 

The conservation of the nation's natural resources was begun 
by President Harrison's quick appreciation of the danger there would 
be to the national life by the destruction of our f- and of the 

ortunity afforded ■■ res rvations, vixen the bill was pass- 

ing through Congress, which became the Act of March 3rd, 1891, 
authorizing the President to set apart and reserve iririg 

forests and establish such reservations by proclamation. The first 

■essive appeal for such a policy came when he, in j, L890, 

! to Congress a memorial from the American Association 

for I lie Advancement of Science, and recommended that adequate 

slops be taken to prevent the rapid destruction of our great forest 

as and the loss of our water supplies. Congress was about to 

v the appropriation of forest lands by individual sett! 
with no provision for ations, but the executive insisted i 

to prevenl the absorption of such lands altogether, ultimately, 
corporations, there musi be, to gain his approval as President, a pro- 
vision for reservation from settlement, of such as the Executive 

—10— 



deemed proper. Congress complied, in the act, with this patriotic and 
far-reaching policy, Imt also allowed settlements. Thus, unless 
reservations were promptly made, the forests would pass to private 
owners, already alert as to their value and regardless of the demands 
of the future. There was need of immediate action, and six reserva- 
tions were created within the term by presidential proclamations, (un- 
bracing an area of more than three and a quarter million acres. And 
the fact was then declared, "that if the forest growth is removed with- 
out consideration of the future, the periods during which the streams 
gWe their present supply of water will be greatly shortened by floods 
and drouths, 1 ' and it was soon after recommended thai " iser- 

va lions should receive protection, either by guards furnished from 
the army or an appropriation should be made to pay custodians and 
watchmen, so that not only might depredations be detected, but fires, 
that consume so great a part of our timber, might be prevented." 

This policy thus avowed, Congress did not at once support 
sufficient appropriations, and resort had to be taken to the ar t v 
greater protection to certain reservations. Troops of cava! 
detailed for the Yosemite Valley, for the General Grant sequoias, and 
for Yellowstone Park. The whole system was, however, then and 
there outlined and practiced, so far as money could be had, that has 
since been carried into effect. 

The night of March 3rd, 1891, when this act was approved, is 
remembered well. It was at the capitol, when the President had 
to be there present to approve acts of Congress before the end of the 
session, already expiring. He paused at this act, and, inquiring if 
it was as it should be, and being advised it was, becau 
authority to make reservations was thereby given, he said, "Then 
I will sign' 1 ; and sign he did; and what of the fc: 
left on the public domain it became possible to wrest from the 
greed of speculators and keep for the use of the nation, then and 
thereafter. By this act the policy was inaugurated, in pursuit of which 
President Cleveland, President McKinley and President Roosevelt, 
with their able Secretaries, and officers, have added to the reservations 
made from 1891 to 1893, those others which now are holding this 
national life-saving asset as one of the richest and most vital I 
pie possess. 

President Roosevelt has said of this policy, "It 
it did not commence sooner, but still fortunate we began as soon as we 
did." 

RESERVATION OF RESERVOIR SITES. 

There were also at. this same period reserved many portions of 
the public domain amid the mountains and their foothills, suitable for 
dams and the creation of reservoirs of water to be used in irrigat Ion of 
arid lands, and the maintenance of our rivers in time of need. The 
prompt action taken by the administration to realize for the people the 
benefits of the Act of October 2nd, 1888, led to the Act of August, 1890, 
providing that reservoir sites already or thereafter located or se- 

i :"* —11— 



ted 011 public lands should from the date of such location be re- 
served from entry or settlement. Through the activity of the 
Geological Survey, very many reservoir sites were established, and 
reservations ordered, which have since been available for the con- 
servation of our rivers and useful for irrigation. 

It would seem that this policy came into sudden existence from 
legislative . acts proposed without provision for any reservations, 
unless private entries might be also made, and thereby immediate 
executive action was demanded to control the situation. Yet that 
policy at once received and has since constantly had the support of 
public opinion and of each successive administration with increasing 
vigor, until there are now -nearly two hundred million acres in the 
forest reservations ; and hundreds of reservoir sites are held by the gov- 
ernment free from private entry. Forest associations, waterway 
conventions, and lumbermen themselves give earnest support to these 
most patriotic aud vital measures. 

There was held at Chicago this present month of October a con- 
vention of "The Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways Association," 
occupying three days, where there were more than two thousand 
delegates from most all the United States, chiefly business men, 
alive to the questions now affecting our commercial progress and 
the demand that our natural resources be so treated by govern- 
mental action that they shall nurture our national life. Before this 
convention addresses were made by both candidates for the Presi- 
dency, Judge Taft and Mr. Bryan. 'There were also addresses made 
by Chief Forester Pinchot, by Governor Deneen, by Congressman 
Lorimer, by Mi-. Shonts, President of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, 
and other eminent men, and there was no dissenting vote or judg- 
ment but that our national resources must and shall be preserved. 
But there was not brought into view the great importance of our 
reservoir sites, not only for irrigation use, but the supply of water 
to our rivers for navigation in times of drouth. The lakes cannot 
be drawn on without limit, and they could supply only the lower 
reaches of our great streams. But these many reservoirs sites now 
preserved, where the rains and deep snows of winter renew the supply 
each year, being filled when the streams are overflowing, can be made 
to regulate, to a great degree, by skillful and scientific management, 
the depleted rivers of the coming year. 

it our people want to do, it was considered, is to hold these 
fastnosses of the mountains, reserve and renew their forests and 
join hands with nature and her vitalizing forces, so that the Republic 
may uol halt in mid career, as other nations have done, from the ex- 
haustion of its domain, but still perpetuate the blessings of good gov- 
ernment, cherished by the land we live in. 

HOMESTEADS. 
There had, up to the period of the Harrison Administration, 
gence of practice, if not of avowed principles, be- 
en the great political parties of the country as to facilitating 

—12— •'• : 



homesteads on the public lauds. Before the Civil War there was a 
political reason apparent why one party was opposed to settlement 
on the public lands, lying mostly in the North. The homestead bill 
was vetoed by President Buchanan. But the act having been ap- 
proved by President Lincoln, it is not easily understood why, in the 
administration immediately preceding that of President Harrison 
there should have been, as shown by the report of the Secretary of 
the Interior for the fiscal year ending June 30th, L888, pending of 
final entries, over two hundred and thirty-eight thousand; or why the 
number of such entries made during the year of more than seventy 
thousand should have exceeded that of all final entries disposed <^[' 
by patents during that year, so that instead of diminishing, the* 
arrearages had increased, and so that of original entries there were 
on hand June 30th, 1888, nearly three hundred and fifty-one thousand, 
of which over two hundred and seventeen thousand were for home- 
steads. This unfortunate condition of affairs came from a want of 
confidence, at least by the General Land Office, in the uprightness of 
those who were settling the farther West. They were the last, prob- 
ably, who may be truly called pioneers, and the previous adminis- 
tration had failed to fully recognize they were our fellow-citizens, 
men like ourselves, no better, no worse, who loved their country and 
were seeking, amid great privations, to establish their wives and chil- 
dren in homes on American soil. President Harrison knew the real 
character of these people. Whatever of fraud there was, was inci- 
dental, and easily detected and prevented, while the vast body 
of these claimants was composed of not only honest, but most 
worthy citizens, longing to realize their hope of individual com- 
petency and to participate in our national affairs. His admin- 
istration brought them immediate and general relief. During the 
four years he was our Chief Magistrate there were issued over 600,- 
000 agricultural patents, and the business of the General Land Office 
brought up abreast with current work. Instead of the final action 
upon applications being delayed for three years, it was taken within 
three to four months. These patents were sent to the great West 
and Southwest to the average number of more than 100,000 each 
year, and "reached beneficently our fellow-citizens in their ho 
far away from the capital, and by placing in the hands of the citi- 
zen the title papers to his homestead, proved his government was 
mindful of its promises, and capable of living up to its professions." 

It is but just to recall, also, the fact that in this period there I 
come from out this great West six new states: North D 
South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming; and there 
had been opened and organized the territory of Oklahoma, together 
with many millions of acres negotiated for ami purchased from In- 
dian tribes; so that not only was the anxiety of the settler allayed 
by the possession of the evidence of his title to his home, but the new 
commonwealths were able to assume their functions of government 
upon sufficient revenues, and the utmost good will of their people 
towards the several new states and the United States. 

: .. —13— 



OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES. 

Much might be said of his advocacy of the act to prevent monop- 
olies or combinations in restraint of fair trade, which he approved 
June 26th, 181)0, and now known as the Interstate Commerce Act, 
but time does not permit me to set forth this and those other measures 
he so ably discussed and advanced, relating to the national finances; 
or his successful struggle to keep every dollar equal to every other 
dollar coined or issued by the United States; to protect American 
industries and American labor; to enforce the Reciprocity policy; 
to protect the election of Congressmen against the "gerrymander;'' 
to preserve a free ballot and a fair count, both South and North; to 
promote civil service reform; to have better protection for the lives 
of those working on our railroads by safety appliances, and to secure 
to each and every one that equal opportunity, equality before the 
law, and adequate protection in person, property and liberty our great 
government was made to confer. 

These and other policies he advanced with unabated zeal and 
patriotic ardor. 

PENSIONS. 

Notice, however, must be taken of his love for, and protection of, 
the survivors of his comrades in the War for the Union. The President 
had declared our Nation should '"be faithful, generous and liberal to 
the soldiers that survive, to care for them and honor them until the 
last veteran sleeps his last sleep;'' and he advocated more liberal 
pension laws for their relief with an eloquence unsurpassed in 
pathos and persuasiveness. 

lie was thus able, on June 27, 1890, to approve the "disability" 
act of Congress, which relieved the applicant for a pension from 
proving his disability originated in the service. There were, Con- 
gress having made adequate appropriation, four hundred and fifty- 
five persons immediately added to the force in the pension office, 
and the Medical Board was increased to twelve hundred and twenty- 
five members. The results were commensurate with these patriotic 
previsions. 

From March 1th, 1880, to November 1st, 1802, there were issued 
over eight hundred ami thirty-five thousand pension certificates, of 
which nearly five hundred and twenty thousand were on original 
claims. 

There were paid in pensions in the same period more than $132,- 
000,000, which was an increase of more than 8114,000,000 over the 
sum paid in the four years of the previous administration. 

He was a soldier, the Colonel of a fighting regiment. He said 
to them in 1888, k> \W went into the service with the full purpose to 
respond to every order, and we never evaded a fight or turned our 
backs to the enemy." Applying his words to all his comrades in 
the whole army, as he said in his address to his own regiment, he re- 
membered, "the high and buoyant determination, the resolute carriage 

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with which they went to do their part in the work of suppressing the 
rebellion; the scenes through which they passed in thai bard discipline 

of service and sickness, and all those incidents which are necessary to 
convert citizens into veterans; he remembered the scenes of battle 
in which they and he stood together, and the broad and de< p grave at 
the foot of the Resaca bill, where were lefl those gallant comrades 
who fell in that gallant charge; he remembered the glad rejoicing 
when their faces were turned homeward, and the whole course of 
those incidents of battle, of sickness, of death, of victory, crowned 
by the triumphant reassertion of national authority; and . 
ter ont and the return to those home that they loved, made again 
secure against all the perils which had threatened them." 

hen he became President, he did not hesitate to seek oppor- 
tunity, and when opportunity was found, to make his words good, 
with most patriotic fervor. 

SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' AND GOVERNOR MORTON 

MONUMENTS. 

It was he who helped to inaugurate the movement for In- 
diana's Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, and as President he was 
at the laying of its corner stone, which he deemed "a twin expression 
of that one great sentiment which had already set up the statue 
of this State's great war governor" (Morton). 

We may well rejoice that there is now added to these other two 
this beautiful <uassic and worthy memorial before us. By one we 
recall the sleepless watchfulness of that Governor who raised the 
forces of the State to contend in the struggle for the Union, and who 
appeared upon field after field to relieve the suffering at each suc- 
ceeding battle, and to encourage the survivors to renewed endeavor 
in battles yet to come. By the other we are reminded of the heroic- 
sacrifices made by Indiana's soldiers and sailors, with their other 
Union comrades, ending only with their lives given for their country. 
And by this last one here unveiled, we express our love and reverence 
for him who, with all his other great services, not only offered all he 
was and all he cherished upon the field, but who kept his pledge and 
that of his country "to care for him who had borne the battle and for 
his widow and orphans." 

Let us, then, this day here recognize in him our loyal fellow citi- 
zen; let us salute with respect the soldier who led his regiment and his 
brigade without fear and to victory; let us look up with admiration 
to the able and patriotic statesman; let us transmit to all the future 
the testimony of a now reunited people, that in his day and genera- 
tion, Benjamin Harrison was acknowledged to be among the best of 
our Presidents, and among the foremost of Americans; and it ;is 
commit his memory to the gratitude of the Nation, the welfare of 
which he had constantly at heart, and sought, by all his talents, to 
preserve in unity, to advance in justice and to cause to endure forever 
for the good of all humanity. 

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